The National Association of Negro Musicians 2014 Awards Banquet was held
Wednesday, July 24, 2014 at the DoubleTree Los Angeles Westside Hotel. Joseph R.
Taylor was one of numerous recipients in different categories. Dan Ellen Joseph
shared information of Joseph R. Taylor’s years of teaching music in public
schools, private instruction, music director and conductor of youth orchestras
in Compton/Watts/Los Angeles communities, professional musician, and conductor
of community orchestras to earn the Music Education Award. Future
international concert violinist and current freshman at USC Thornton School of
Music Annelle Gregory and pianist Dr. James Lent performed “Romance
and Hungarian Dance” by Sergei Rachmaninoff in tribute to Joseph R.
Taylor.

I attended the NANM
Awards Banquet specifically to honor Joseph R. Taylor for a reason not mentioned
by Dan Ellen Joseph in her introduction or in the acceptance speech of Maestro
Joseph R. Taylor.

In 1978, I befriended
American classical composer Roy Harris. The first commercial recording by an
American record company of a symphonic composition was the CBS recording of Roy
Harris “Symphony 1933”. Roy Harris
“Fifth Symphony” was dedicated to the valor of the Russian soldiers who were our
allies in World War 11. Roy Harris
was subsequently selected as a member of the State Department’s first cultural
exchange with the Soviet Union 1958. He became the first American to conduct a
Russian orchestra when he conducted his “Fifth Symphony” in the Soviet Union.
Roy Harris and his family became tragic victims of McCarthyism after he refused
to stop a United States performance of the “Fifth Symphony”. His career was
greatly damaged by a boycott of his name and music. He even had to relocate
after physical threats against his family including young
children.

Roy Harris “Bicentennial
Symphony” or “14th Symphony” premiered at the Kennedy Center for
three days, February 10-12, 1976, with the National Symphony Orchestra under the
baton of Maestro Murry Sidlin. In
my opinion, the “Bicentennial Symphony” is the strongest musical statement on
U.S. History, slavery, and race relations ever made by an American
composer. The work was written for
orchestra with large chorus. The
chorus carries the larger part of the work with passages from the Preamble to
the Constitution, the Gettysburg Address, and the Emancipation Proclamation as
well as original passages.

The introduction is a
musical representation of dawn to daylight. The first movement is a setting of the
Preamble of the Constitution. The
second movement is an exposition of the bitter disagreement about slavery
between the North and the South.
The third movement is a statement in music about the ferocity of the
Civil War, brother against brother.
The fourth movement is a musical setting of Abraham Lincoln’s “Freedom
Proclamation”. The fifth movement
is a musical setting of new attitudes of free black people. The coda is a setting of portions of the
Preamble of the Constitution proclaiming freedom “for all of
us”.

A critic mauled the
premiere performance and perhaps most of the 1976 audience misinterpreted the
work as an indictment instead of a celebration. The subject of slavery,
especially in realistic description, had been keep out of the concert halls. I
speculate that Roy Harris believed the Emancipation Proclamation along with
other mentioned documents were the great achievements to spotlight for the
200th birthday of our nation. I further speculate that the elite
audience at the Kennedy Center may have expected an achievement such as walking
on the moon to represent our nation’s 200th birthday instead of the
ending of slavery. Reviews, discussions, and even mentions of the premiere
performance at the Kennedy Center are scant and non-existent.

In response to my
inquiry, the administrative office of the National Symphony Orchestra insisted
that an archival recording was not made of the performance. Renowned cellist
Rostropovich performed separately on the same program. The Harris Symphony was
scheduled to be performed the following week-end by the Dallas Symphony. The
story was told by the Dallas Symphony that the score was “LOST IN FLIGHT” and
the respected “Third Symphony” was substituted for the “Bicentennial Symphony”.
The Kennedy Center premiere included a chorus of 100 singers from Texas.

On a
different note, Aaron Copland's “A Lincoln Portrait” was slated for
Eisenhower's Inaugural Concert. But days before the concert the composition was
removed from the concert. A Congressman offered the explanation "The Republican
Party would have been ridiculed from one end of the United States to the other
if Copland's music had been played at the inaugural of a president elected to
fight Communism."

My friendship with Roy
Harris embraced Johana Harris. Each time I visited their home, Johana treated me
to a short piano recital in a spacious room with a striking view of Pacific
Palisades and the Pacific Ocean before Roy entered the room.

After Roy’s death, I
asked Johana Harris for the rights to publicize, promote, and perform the
“Bicentennial Symphony”. The rights were granted to me and Johana’s assistant
forwarded the original copy drafted by Johana or her assistant to the University
that commissioned the “Bicentennial Symphony” and held the original score in
their library archives.

On
another note, if the South had won the Civil War, we could not have elected the
current second term President. I
hear the Confederate mentality in the current opposition to President Obama. Dr.
Stephanie McCurry argues in her book “Confederate Reckoning” that the
confederacy created its own demise by excluding women and Blacks who were then
the majority of the population.